Raising Chickens

[Elder Sister]

I started to post this in Entertainment, since we don't have a "Farming" forum here in Westeros, but I just decided you lovely folks wouldn't mind if I stick this here. :)

Do any of you have experience with backyard chickens, and if so, would you mind sharing?

I'm getting some beehives this summer, but I'm looking to add a little backyard chicken coop next spring, provided I like what I read and discover about them. I'm looking for an organic pest control alternative to chemicals, as well as fresh eggs.

I'm looking for information regarding -

1. how many chickens do I need for a small family,
   
2. predator control...think Sheepdog vs. Wile E. Coyote
   
3. how much work/maintenance goes into the upkeep of the flock?
   
4. what breeds do you recommend?
   

I'm hoping there is someone here who has some experience with this....but y'all seem awfully civilized/urban. Here goes nothing.

[MisterOJ]

Hey ES,

I know a fair piece about raising chickens, since I grew up on a chicken farm (of sorts*).

What are you wanting to get out of this arrangement? Like, are you just wanting a few eggs just for you? Or are you wanting a bunch of eggs that you can give away to friends and family? And do you plan on butchering any of them for meat? Or are you wanting them to be more or less pets?

* I say "of sorts" because we basically raised game cocks for fighting. We still slaughtered pullets regularly and always had lots of fresh eggs too. So, my expertise as it is will be a bit more in that area. But, I know lots of basics.

[Elder Sister]

Basically, just eggs for me and my family. I'm not going to be butchering chickens, and knowing me, they will definitely wind up being pets. I'm actually most interested in the organic pest control that chickens bring to the gardening equation. I'm trying to get away from all pesticides in my backyard, particularly because of the bee hives.

[MisterOJ]

What kind of acreage do you have? Are you going to fence it at all?

[Elder Sister]

What kind of acreage do you have? Are you going to fence it at all?

I have 3 acres. I'm surrounded by my dad's place, which is 200+ acres, but it's mostly pine trees. I'm planning on having a coop with a small run. What is your opinion on this? Should I plan on fencing more in? I would like them to be able to roam around and eat all the bugs.

[The Mance]

1. Depends on your egg consumption (obviously, i guess) A healthy layer ought to lay an egg a day in the warmer months. Production will slow down over the winter due to the shorter light cycle, but if you want to rig a lightbulb in their coop most hens will keep laying through the winter.

2. Pretty much everything is going to want to eat your chickens. Best you can do is mitigate access. I recommend a fully enclosed pen, with at least a chicken wire covering, and 2" pig fencing around the sides in addition to some chicken wire. Also, around the base of your fence, if you can let the chicken wire extend out from the bottom into the yard away from the fence by at least a foot or two, it will help prevent animals from digging under your fence. At night its best to have a good sturdy hen house that you can close them up in.

3. Not much besides feeding watering and egg collecting.

4. Pretty much anything you want for a small kitchen flock. I started with some Rhode Island Reds just because I recognized the name. Auracana's will lay blue eggs, if you're into that.

[peterbound]

I've had chickens in the past. I actually think I posted about them once or twice on here (and on the Facebook. We're friends on there, right? You can look at my pictures of the coop and the hens).

We got rid of them when Gina deployed, and I was on the first quarter of my Probie year. Dylan was doing a great job taking care of them, but the poor little bastard had a lot on his plate for a 10 year old, and that seemed like a cruel thing to lay on him with me being gong for 48 hours at a time.

As for your questions:

1. There are three of us in the Crossett household, and 4 chickens sufficed. Now I eat a lot of eggs, and probably would have been good with something around twice that to actually fulfill my intake without buying eggs from the market. You'll get about an egg a day when they are in their prime laying years, sometimes less, especially in the winter.

2. Not sure how 'free range' you want the hens to be. Chickens are really good at being chickens, and i'm not all that convinced they give a shit as to how much room they have (sorry animal lovers). We let our's free range, and they destroyed (let me re emphasize that.. fucking DESTROYED my back yard. Those dickheads will eat anything). We just made sure they were cooped at night. The big predators we had in our area were raccoons and foxes. Hawks were never a big deal where i lived (although they are around, we had pretty good cover), and i'd heard tale of mountain cats, but never saw any as a threat. The best defense against the threats is to keep them cooped at all times, with chicken wire dug below the coop. Get the ends of the wire, and point them back up towards the surface, like a 'V'. This will discourage burrowing from the shitheels trying to eat your birds. Hell, half the time I don't even think they are trying to eat them. Raccoons are spiteful little fuckers, and will reach in and just kill the hens to be dicks. So ya, that's the foolproof way. Keep em cooped and set up an anti digging method (I actually built a box with OSB and 2x4's and put my coop in it, cutting off the dig through option). Saying all that, we let our's free range, and never had issue as long as we got them up at night. I live in the 'burbs though, and most predators avoid that area during the day.

Here is the sub forum on BYC that I used to fight the evil attackers: http://www.backyardchickens.com/a/chicken-predators-pests-how-to-protect-treat-your-flock

Use Backyard chicken a lot!! Great resource

3. Once they are out of their 'teenage' phase, got their feathers, and are laying eggs… very little. LIke I said above, they are really good at being chickens, and will lay in the roost, take care of each other, and eat whatever you throw at them. Buy some 'Whole' feed, and you won't really have to throw anything else out. Some people will experiment with what makes their chickens 'happy' but if you get the complete pellets, you shouldn't have an issue. Frame up some sort of constant water supply, and a heat lamp (if that what is needed in your area) and you should be alright. I cleaned my coop about once a week and used the droppings in my mulch pit. Nice and easy. The Hay can get to be unorganized, and i'm not sure you need it. Some people have lice/nit problems, but some Diatomaceous Earth can help with that. Never was an issue here. So ya, little if any upkeep. Just make sure your coop doesn't burn to the ground.

4. As for breeds, were were limited to 'winter hearty' stock, but were able to find some we liked. We had two Americana's and two Red Stars. We wanted at least two 'Easter Egg' layers. Those that lay green, blue, and sometimes pinkish eggs. Those were our Americana's. The Reds laid the dark brown eggs that look natural. We liked both. The Reds got a little bigger, and would hen peck the Am's. They worked that shit out amongst themselves though. One of them will establish dominance, and take the role of the rooster (couldn't have one in our city limits) which was funny to watch. Really depends on what you want for eggs, climate and end result. Do you want meat chickens? Different animal all together. We liked those two, but I doubt you'll find much difference in personality/temperament between the breeds. Most people pick based on availability, and aesthetics.

We liked having them, and now that i've been on the job for a while, and Dylan is a grown ass man we might get four more. I'll have to see what Gina has to say about it first.

​A couple of notes. If you have a garden, they will eat it. Keep them away from it

​Don't let them start eating their own eggs. That shit will sabotage your production.

try and get them at the same stage of development, or socialize them quickly.

​If one starts to bleed, separate it from the flock. The others will peck the shit out of it, and kill it. Some petroleum jelly over the wound will staunch the bleeding, if you need to get it back into the flock.

[Elder Sister]

TM and PB, thank you so much - this is exactly what I'm looking for.

Do either of you have a favorite breed? Also, I'm an avid gardener, so I will obviously need to keep them penned, or supervise them. I would definitely be butchering birds if they ate some of my flowers. Grrrrrr.

[MisterOJ]

Board ate my post. :worried:

See, I was going to say with that much land, you could probably just let the chickens roam. That's what we did when I was a kid. All the hens and chicks just ran around the homeplace. We had maybe 9-10 acres or so. They never really strayed off of it, since they knew they would get fed every evening. Now, we had to keep the roosters all separated, because they would literally beat the shit out of each other. But with a less aggressive breed, you could probably let your cocks wander around too.

Also, the chickens never bothered our gardens. And we had big gardens growing up. Maybe it was the breed? We had mainly Sid and Hatch chickens. I don't know, but I just know as long as we kept them well fed, they never bothered our tomatoes or beans or corn or any of the other stuff we grew. Maybe it was all the land they had to walk around on too. I dunno. It was never a problem for us.

[Elder Sister]

Mr. OJ, did y'all coop them at night?

[MisterOJ]

Nope. We had a few different coops. One we kept closed up and kept a few hens in it all the time. We did that just so it was easy to gather eggs. We'd rotate hens in and out so that none of them had to stay in the "egg coop" all the time. We had another one that was sorta open for the outside chickens to use if they wanted. Sometimes they would stay in there. Sometimes they wouldn't. I guess it depended on their mood. Not sure.

Back in the mountains, we didn't have to worry about predators much. We would have an occasional hawk or owl problem, but they were few and far between.

[peterbound]

Again, for me, I'm not super concerned about the 'free range' concept. Give them a nice little run built onto their coop, and they'll be alright. Most of the time the fuckers stayed in their coop anyways.

I liked my Americuna's (didn't know i was spelling that wrong till a min a go), they were mellower than my Red's. Could have had something to do with the socialization. I dunno. I also liked the eggs they put out. A nice creamy green.

[The Mance]

​If one starts to bleed, separate it from the flock. The others will peck the shit out of it, and kill it. Some petroleum jelly over the wound will staunch the bleeding, if you need to get it back into the flock.

Yeah, this is important. All chickens are going to peck at each other according to social dominance (thus pecking order), so you'll get used to seeing small bare patches on all of them, but once they see or smell blood all the birds will obsess on that one bleeding spot and really do some damage. Shouldn't be a problem with just a small flock of hens though.

Also, the chickens never bothered our gardens. And we had big gardens growing up. Maybe it was the breed? We had mainly Sid and Hatch chickens. I don't know, but I just know as long as we kept them well fed, they never bothered our tomatoes or beans or corn or any of the other stuff we grew. Maybe it was all the land they had to walk around on too. I dunno. It was never a problem for us.

I think chickens cause more damage to seedlings than mature plants. We'd keep them out of our seeded beds in early summer, but by late summer they were allowed to wander the rows to peck off bugs and things.

[lady narcissa]

I've got no knowledge whatsoever about raising and keeping chickens. But I think my cousin knows someone in the business of making urban chicken coops as apparently they are becoming a thing in some cities.

But I do follow an interior designer on instagram who lives in the country in England and among many pictures of decorative arts/architecture/art sorts of things posts frequent pictures and goings on about his chickens which are enjoyable. So for an occasional chuckle and doodle doo:

https://instagram.com/p/1GcyfRDV2a/?taken-by=ashleyhicks1970

[peterbound]

Yeah, this is important. All chickens are going to peck at each other according to social dominance (thus pecking order), so you'll get used to seeing small bare patches on all of them, but once they see or smell blood all the birds will obsess on that one bleeding spot and really do some damage. Shouldn't be a problem with just a small flock of hens though.

I think chickens cause more damage to seedlings than mature plants. We'd keep them out of our seeded beds in early summer, but by late summer they were allowed to wander the rows to peck off bugs and things.

Well, they destroyed all of our raised beds, and large swaths of grass. Mature or seedlings, all was open game.

Best not to take the chance if you can avoid it.

[Elder Sister]

Mance, do you have chickens currently?

ETA: This board is so awesome. I feel like there is no topic in the universe that I can't get info. about. You guys are better than Google.

[The Mance]

peterbound, on 13 Apr 2015 - 4:59 PM, said:

Well, they destroyed all of our raised beds, and large swaths of grass. Mature or seedlings, all was open game.

Best not to take the chance if you can avoid it.

:lol: yeah, could be. My wife was in charge of the garden, so she'd have them out there with her when she was weeding or whatever. All I know is they never ate any of my basil.

Elder Sister, on 13 Apr 2015 - 5:00 PM, said:

Mance, do you have chickens currently?

Not currently and not for several years, but someday I'll have them again. We always had a dozen or so egg hens, and then we'd raise 25 meat hens once or twice a year. Meat hens are a lot more work, even if you don't butcher them yourself. But a moderate flock for eggs is nice to see wandering around the yard. They will shit everywhere, they'll start hiding eggs, or laying them in weird places, and they are dumb as rocks, but I like 'em.

You'll get to know them and their personalities. Some of them will be a bigger PitA than others, one of your hens might like you and follow you around, or a rooster will REALLY like you and try to mount you whenever you bend down. Some will learn to eat out of your hand, or let you pick them up and pet them, or not. If you have a rooster eventually one of your hens will find a way to brood some eggs she's been hiding and one day she'll show up with a mess of chicks chasing her around.

We had one rooster that really took a liking* to my wife. The house we were in at the time was a long one story ranch with some window height stone planters all the way around house. This rooster would go around to all the windows until he found one that he could see my wife through, and then he'd peer in at her and crow and crow. It was hilarious, and sweet, and really really creepy.

*or something

[Lily Valley]

ES,

There are free range and feral chickens all over New Orleans. Some of my neighbors have open coops and just let the birds come and go. This can be a bit of a nuisance. One of my friends has a rooster that gets into her house every single day. He's a menace. The only upside is that the hens seem to like her yard too and she's getting free eggs from them. That flock seems to take care of itself completely without supervision. They're big enough that the cats and dogs leave them alone. They seem like the easiest animals in the world to take care of.

Good luck!

[Arataniello]

I'd also be interested in hearing about your beekeeping experiences when they start.

[Elder Sister]

I'd also be interested in hearing about your beekeeping experiences when they start.

I'm getting two nucs (beginning bee hives) in June, so I will definitely let you know how it's going.